ABSTRACT
Many places have been known for and through music: from jazz in New Orleans, Soundgarden and the grunge scene in Seattle, Delta blues to Goa techno. Locations where popular musicians have been particularly active, or audiences and subcultures unusually vibrant, have become synonymous (and sometimes eponymous) with specific styles of music. Such local sounds are subsequently heard within national and transnational mediascapes. This chapter seeks to develop a framework for understanding these expressions of ‘local cultures’ in music, and situating them in contemporary debates about notions of uniqueness within a global context. It examines the emergence of ‘scenes’ in particular places, and then considers those where local cultures developed to such a degree that a particular city or region became famous for a ‘sound’ of its own (such as the ‘San Francisco sound’ or the ‘Mersey sound’). Subsequent chapters deal with similar manifestations of ‘the local’ in music, examining connections between sound and place, from the multilayered tunes of migrant communities in world cities to the relationships between cultural identities, places and nations.
